Language and Literacy

With educators for parents and a dad with a passion for early childhood literacy, there is no doubt that this will not be the last post to Ella's blog with the title "Language and Literacy"
That said, we are in the midst of some serious transitions in Ella's language and literacy development. And we are having fun!
1. Ella is totally obsessed with books. Any chance she gets, she'll collect an armful of books, sit you down, sit in your lap, and expect your best storytelling. Sometimes she'll sit for up to an hour being read to sometimes. She grabs a book and backs into your waiting lap so deliberately that you expect to hear the beep of a backing up truck. She's starting to know some books by name like, Mr. Brown Can Moo is "Moo." And best (and worst) of all we've learned the hard way to hide all of her books during sleep and nap times. If she catches site of a book from her crib when she wakes up she'll scream and scream and scream until we come in and read to her. Without a book in site she usually just wakes up and plays by herself in her crib for a bit. Oh, the joys of an avid reader!
2. For a while now Ella has been able to point things if asked to. Like, "Ella, where's daddy's nose?" and she proudly points at my nose. Then she went through a phase when she played dumb to those kinds of questions. Now instead of pointing she repeats, and as a result her vocabulary is BLOWING UP!!! We're even working on "please" and "yes" and "perspicacious" and she's getting them all, sort of.
3. Ella said her first sentence last weekend. "Help, please!"
4. BilinguElla: Ella showed off her bilingual stuff this week for the first time. Asking for some milk at snack time she simultaneously said "milk" and did the American Sign Language sign for milk. It was very sophisticated. I think she was humoring me back to my days of ear infections and hearing aids. Thanks, Ella.